RtI... Still relevant?

If you do a Google search, you'll find 115,000,000 entries for "Response to Intervention" - that should indicate its relevance, right?  Well, if you dig deeper, you don't see as much *new* stuff out there.  I feel like the buzz words today are "Common Core State Standards" and "close reading".  All that time and energy we put into RtI, what happens now?

Well, I must be totally behind the times because I just picked up Gretchen Owocki's "The RTI Daily Planning Book, K-6" (Heinemann, 2010) and I love it.  I've been thinking about all the new initiatives we are taking on, the testing we are still waiting to experience so that we know if what we've starting doing is even appropriate (here in Vermont we don't get to take the test until NEXT spring).  I feel like I'm treading water, starting to go in over my head for a  while, then I get a new burst of power and start treading again.  It's not a great feeling!

Enter RTI: A way for me to evaluate the current levels of my students, progress monitor for maximum growth, and evaluate students with needs beyond the regular curriculum.  Meanwhile, as I'm changing my curriculum to meet CCSS, I can be comfortable knowing that I'm still meeting all students' needs.

In her introduction to the text, Owocki explains the six main categories of student needs, organized into profiles.  Maybe everyone else has heard of this but I was amazed and it all made sense!!  There aren't just "word callers," but "automatic," "struggling," and "slow;" there are "word stumblers," "slow comprehenders," and "disabled readers."  Now I can have a framework for my approach to individual students as I meet with them in my intervention groups.  I know that some students get interventions that don't meet their needs, then they don't progress and are continually frustrated.  But if my measures show a need but I don't know exactly or can't precisely name what that need is, we will all be frustrated -- more treading water!  Just the idea that we can categorize students, while simplistic in a sense, is so helpful for me as I start the new year with new plans and new resolutions!  Part 1 consists of Assessment Practices and Tools and Part 2 is Instructional Practices and Tools.  I can't wait to dive in!

Happy New Year!!